


In Addition to a Friend

by lucybun



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Pre-Series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucybun/pseuds/lucybun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What she’d learned from that particular incident was to stop worrying about getting a boyfriend.  There are so many other types of relationships that can and should fill a person’s life, she reasoned, that it would be a good and intelligent thing to focus on those for a while.  Friendship could quell her loneliness too, and Molly was good at friendship. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Addition to a Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meredydd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meredydd/gifts).



> This was written for Meredydd for the Sherlockmas exchange, and it only took me a month to post it here! The original prompt is in the end notes, but I didn't do such a great job of sticking to it. Thanks again to the mods at Sherlockmas for all their hard work. Also, this was written before series 3, so non-compliant and non-spoilery.

Just to be clear, she really had been the one to break things off with Jim. She’d only been drawn to him in the first place because he’d seemed attentive and kind, shy and a little awkward. After years of being drawn to men like Sherlock, Jim had seemed like something she should try. He was more than a bit like Molly herself, all things considered, and perhaps that’s what she needed. Maybe she needed someone who would not just notice her but pay attention to her. Maybe she needed someone who was quiet out of inclination rather than someone who was quiet because he hadn’t even realized she was there. 

Because that was what she was used to, that was the pattern her life had fallen into, with Sherlock and a short string of men like him who had come before. Sherlock was the shining beacon of jerkdom that she usually found herself fixated on, but he’d certainly not been the first or even the worst. So, Jim. Jim from IT had seemed to be very different from Molly’s normal type, and she’d hoped that any relationship she’d build with him would be infinitely healthier than what she was used to. A little boring perhaps, but not so detrimental to her self-worth. 

Of course, it didn’t take long for that to fall apart. She’d had her doubts about Jim even before Sherlock’s deduction about him being gay. She’d dismissed those doubts as remnants of the old arrogant-jerk-loving Molly trying to make an appearance, but she’d been unable to keep on those blinders after Sherlock, and she really didn’t want to waste any more time on someone who was unavailable. When she’d broken up with Jim, the only emotion she’d seen in his eyes had been mild surprise. She took it as confirmation enough that she’d made the right choice (boy, had she) and tried to move on with an eye toward making better choices about her life. 

Not that she didn’t have setbacks in her new quest to build a better Molly. She still couldn’t think of that Christmas party without cringing. It had been a stupid thing to do, a stupid way to act and dress, and she’d known it at the time. But she’d been lonely for too long, and she’d been too heavily influenced by the romance of the season and the way Sherlock’s edges had seemed to soften after John had entered his life. It was a shame that a Sherlock who was perhaps a bit gentler could still be such a clueless, thoughtless arse. So, it was another learning experience. Molly was young yet, and becoming a confident woman meant learning from those painful moments instead of sinking underneath them. What she’d learned from that particular incident was to stop worrying about getting a boyfriend. There are so many other types of relationships that can and should fill a person’s life, she reasoned, that it would be a good and intelligent thing to focus on those for a while. Friendship could quell her loneliness too, and Molly was good at friendship. 

It was something of a revelation to her how well that shift in focus worked. As people who are often ignored tend to do, Molly paid attention to other people. And she was prone to using the knowledge she gained to help those people when she could. For a very long time, others around her saw that willingness to help as a sign of weakness. Molly herself thought that was just sad. She liked being helpful and kind, and once she started actively making an effort to view those traits as an ability, as something that came naturally to her that not everyone had, the self-confidence that had seemed so elusive before began to slowly emerge. 

It was what had given her the backbone to take the risk of helping Sherlock with his almost ludicrous plan. Probably no one would believe it except, oddly enough, Sherlock himself, but she hadn’t done what she’d done out of some misguided thought that it would finally make him love her. She’d done it out of a realization that she cared for him and that there was power in that caring. Power that not only helped him with his plan, but power that helped her be the sort of friend that he, and by extension John, desperately needed at that point. 

So, the Molly that weathered the storm of Sherlock’s death was a very different Molly than she’d been before. Things changed so much in the aftermath, but she was okay with that. She joined a few clubs in an effort to meet new people. She joined an improv class to help force her out of some of her shyness. It almost physically hurt to put herself out there at times, but it wasn’t long before she was reaping the rewards. She found herself with several new acquaintances that she nurtured into a few real friendships. 

However, she was careful not to let her old friendships go. Both she and John made an effort to stay in touch. She’d been there as he struggled to piece his life back together yet again, and she’d been there to watch him deal with all that bringing Mary into his life entailed. She saw in him a picture of what could have been, what her life might have been like if she’d managed to find someone who could fill in her spaces. For all that looking at him sometimes broke her heart, his misery was also a reminder that she’d maybe dodged a bullet by not building her world around another person. Oh, there was a romance to it, an intensity to it, that still called to her sometimes, but it only took remembering the desolation she’d seen too often on John’s face or the fear she’d witnessed when he began dating Mary to bring her back to reality. Molly needed friends, wanted friends, but the only person she needed to build her world around was Molly Hooper. 

And it was in the spirit of making friends and of being a good friend that she first struck up a conversation with Mycroft Holmes. She’d seen him standing in the corner of 221B after the funeral, and she couldn’t help but feel the misery practically rolling off of him in waves. She wasn’t precisely sure of his involvement in it, but she was certain that he knew about Sherlock’s scheme to fake his death. Still, even if he wasn’t dead, Sherlock was in danger, and he’d been forced to give up his life in a very meaningful way. She felt genuine grief for him, and she didn’t doubt that Mycroft was truly mourning too. It hurt her heart to see him looking so shattered, so she’d walked up to him and introduced herself. He knew who she was of course, and he probably knew everything there was worth knowing about her, but she was wise enough now to realize that there was a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone. Mycroft looked like he could use a friend right about then, and Molly could be that for him if he cared to let her. 

Turns out he did. Care to let her, that is. They ended up chatting for over an hour that day, quiet words about the service melting into sharing their worries about John and the sting of the world thinking Sherlock was a fraud. There was even a somber, unspoken acknowledgement that they were the only people to know the whole truth of the situation, and that shared pain brought with it a sense of kinship. And though he’d looked on her knowingly as their conversation began, by the time he shook her hand and offered to have her driven home, he looked more surprised than anything. She took great satisfaction in that. People always underestimated her, but it wasn’t often that anyone realized that they’d done so. When she’d received a stupidly expensive box of sweets the following week and a lovely note thanking her for being so kind, she’d felt pleased and somehow a little vindicated. 

From that day forward, Molly Hooper, meek yet strong person, and Mycroft Holmes, omniscient yet battered person, became friends. They had dinner every couple of weeks. She’d put on one of her two dresses, he’d pick her up in his black sedan, and they’d have a lovely meal in a lovely restaurant. And they’d talk. She sometimes wondered if Mycroft weren’t treating their outings as some sort of therapy session, but she decided that she was okay with it if he did. Besides, he didn’t do all the talking when they met. He asked about her life, about her work and her other friends, and he listened when she spoke. He listened, comprehended and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. He became her friend just as much as she was his, and if she was terribly amused by the fact that he sometimes looked almost dismayed to find himself in such a position, well, no one need know that but her. 

However, as anyone who is one can tell you, being a good friend isn’t always easy. As the holiday season rolled around, Molly found herself a bit torn. She’d been invited to a number of parties for Christmas Eve, and it gave her a little glow of pride to know that she was genuinely wanted at a few of them, that her invitation hadn’t merely been issued out of duty. The only thing that dulled that glow was the knowledge that she was going to turn all of the invitations down, which meant disappointing some of her friends. 

It wasn’t really a huge part of her life, but Molly was Jewish. She was casual enough about it that she often took part in the secular trappings of Christmas. She liked the music and the lights and finding just the right presents. She liked the optimism and hopefulness of the season, and, yes, she still liked the romance of it all even if that came in the form of watching _Love Actually > on repeat rather than having a partner of her own. _

So though she was more than willing to attend those parties she’d been invited to, she couldn’t. She couldn’t look around and see her colleagues who had young children or her one colleague who was devoutly Catholic miss out on the more meaningful aspects of Christmas Eve when there was something she could do about it. When she’d offered sometime in early December to cover their shifts on the 24th, the looks of happiness on their faces had been reward enough for Molly. Of course, the extra help she received all month and the chocolate gelt she found on her desk throughout Hanukkah were nice too. She felt appreciated rather than taken advantage of, and if that wasn’t an indication of how far she’d come, she didn’t know what was. 

She’d sent her regrets for the various invitations she’d received, and she’d trundled into work that night with a thermos of hot cocoa and a new book on her e-reader. She hoped fervently that they’d not be getting any new admissions. She was imminently practical about the realities of her job, but she felt an extra sting of sadness when a body was brought in on Christmas Eve. As it turned out, things were happily quiet, and she was able to settle in and read without interruption. The story was just trashy and outrageous enough to have her totally engrossed to the point that she didn’t hear the clicking of shoes on the tile as someone approached. 

She started when she heard a man clearing his throat delicately, and she jerked her head up to see Mycroft, dressed in a lovely cashmere sweater and what she was sure were brand new jeans, standing in front of her desk. He apologized quickly for startling her then simply stood there awkwardly, obviously searching for words and looking a bit lost. Molly’s heartbeat was gradually calming from her surprise, but she still felt an odd twinge in her chest to see him like that. She unconsciously pressed her hand against that tiny ache and put on her happiest smile. It was a good smile, she knew, and it was also contagious. Mycroft smiled back at her, and his was a good smile too. And though it was awfully nice to see him, she couldn’t help but wonder why he was visiting her in the morgue on Christmas Eve. 

In her kindly blunt way she asked, “Why are you here, Mycroft?” 

And in his less kindly but still blunt way, he answered, “I’m not exactly sure. I had planned to attend John and Mary’s dinner party, but I seem to have changed my mind. It’s rude of me.” The lines between his eyes deepened as he frowned in consternation. “I’m not normally rude, Molly. I don’t really know what’s come over me.” 

She wasn’t exactly sure either, but the tiny ache behind her heart didn’t feel so tiny anymore. Without thinking, she blurted, “Did you buy new jeans for the party?” 

Mycroft actually looked embarrassed, and she could’ve kicked herself. 

“Yes, I suppose I did. The invitation said casual, and I had a feeling that mine was probably the only one that said that specifically.” He cleared his throat again, “I was making an effort to fit in. They’re terribly uncomfortable though.” 

They looked stiff and pressed, so they probably weren’t comfortable, though she doubted that was actually at the root of his discomfort in them. 

“They look good on you, but I see what you mean. Maybe next time you can try some khaki trousers?” 

He barked out a tiny laugh, “I don’t know that there will be a next time after this. I’ve stood them up.” 

“Oh, they’ll be fine,” she reassured. “There will be plenty of other people there.” Realizing how that sounded, she quickly added, “Not that you won’t be missed, I’m sure, but I don’t think you’ve ruined their party.” 

“I suppose not,” he replied. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but shut it again with a clack of his teeth. He seemed to be struggling for words, and Molly didn’t quite know what to do. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “I think you would’ve been missed too. I… actually I know you would’ve been. I would’ve missed you, and I believe that’s why I’m here. I mean, it _is_ why I’m here. You being missed, that is. By me. My missing you.” With that, he looked up at the ceiling in painful embarrassment and groaned, “Bloody hell.” 

And Molly didn’t quite know what to do with herself. A part of her wanted to play it cool, smile at Mycroft and make some witty quip that would put him at ease. Another part of her wanted to giggle at seeing him so discomfited. But the biggest part of her wanted to walk around her desk, take him into her arms, and see how warm his blushing cheek felt against her lips. 

She thought on that one for a moment, thought about the wisdom of doing something so very un-Mollyish. Then she thought, in somewhat of a very small epiphany, that perhaps that wouldn’t be so very un-Mollyish after all. Maybe this was another one of those learning experiences. She’d gone from one extreme to another, hadn’t she? She’d spent all that time thinking all she needed to do was find the right man, then she’d spent the last few years thinking that finding a man wasn’t what was best for her at all. Honestly, it hadn’t been what was best for her back then, but she wasn’t the same person now, was she? This Molly Hooper knew who she was, this Molly had friends and a life and a fulfilling job. This Molly Hooper was happy in and of herself. And this Molly Hooper knew she didn’t need Mycroft Holmes to make her better. She didn’t need him to be her missing puzzle piece. She didn’t actually need him at all. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want him. 

Which is how she found herself rising from her seat and moving to stand in front of Mycroft, all while he looked on with an expression that was too wary to be hope. He remained stiff for a few moments after she’d taken him into her embrace, but he relaxed just a bit when she kissed his cheek. They stood there like that for several minutes, simply enjoying being close to each other. Finally, she pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. 

“Thank you. I know this wasn’t easy for you, so thank you. You’re a good friend, Mycroft Holmes, and I think I’d like it very much if you were something besides my friend. Not something more, mind, just something different. In addition, I guess. I like being your friend, and that’s important to me, but I think there could be something else there too, and I want that. I want you.” 

She couldn’t help but smile when she saw a certain look cross his face for only the second time in their acquaintance. He’d underestimated her once again. As she watched though, she saw his expression shift from one of surprise to one of determination. She seriously doubted he’d make that mistake a third time, and she felt a little thrill at being known, at being known by this man. Her hands shifted up to the nape of his neck and pulled him down to kiss his mouth. And though she’d meant it to be a simple heartfelt press of lips, it somehow morphed into something quite a bit wetter and harder and longer than she’d intended. When they came up for air, she giggled at the look on her friend’s face. Ah well, she thought as she went back for more, perhaps he wouldn’t make that mistake a fourth time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: Molly is Jewish and volunteers to work over Christmas again so her co-workers who celebrate can go home to their families and don't have to spend the night at the morgue. She thinks that no one will miss her from the (very large, thanks to Sherlock's return and the media interest in his appearance) party she was invited to by Mycroft ...


End file.
